Elena's abduction. Theseus and Peyrifoy decide to kidnap Persephone. Death of Theseus

A beautiful wife did not live long Peyrifoya, Hippodamia; she died in the full bloom of her beauty. The widowed Peyrifoy, having mourned his wife, after a while decided to marry again. He went to his friend Theseus to Athens, and there they decided to kidnap the beautiful Elena. She was still a very young girl, but the fame of her beauty thundered far across Greece. Friends secretly arrived in Laconia and kidnapped Elena there when she was dancing merrily with her friends during the holiday Artemis. Theseus and Peyrifoy seized Elena and quickly carried her to the mountains of Arcadia, and from there, through Corinth and Isthmus, they brought her to Attica, to the fortress of Athens. The Spartans rushed in pursuit, but could not overtake the kidnappers. Hiding Elena in the city of Athens, in Attica, friends cast lots, which of them should belong to the marvelous beauty. The lot fell to Theseus. But even earlier, friends swore to each other that the one of them who gets the beautiful-haired Elena should help the other get a wife.

When Elena went to Theseus, Peyrifoy demanded from his friend that he help him get a wife Persephone, the wife of the terrible god Hades, the lord of the kingdom of the shadows of the dead. Theseus was horrified, but what could he do? He had taken an oath, he could not break it. He had to accompany Peyrifoy to the kingdom of the dead. Through a gloomy crevice near the village of Colon, near Athens, friends descended into the underworld. There, in the realm of horrors, both friends appeared before Hades and demanded that he give them Persephone. The gloomy ruler of the kingdom of the dead became angry, but hid his anger and invited the heroes to sit on a throne carved into the rock at the very entrance to the kingdom of the dead. As soon as the two heroes sat down on the throne, they were rooted to it and could no longer move. So Hades punished them for their unholy demand.

While Theseus remained in the kingdom of Hades, the brothers of the beautiful Helen, Castor and Polydeucus, they were looking everywhere for their sister. Finally, they found out where Theseus hid Elena. They immediately besieged Athens, and the impregnable fortress could not stand. Castor and Polydeucus took her, freed her sister and took Theseus' mother captive with her, Efru. The power over Athens and all of Attica was given by Castor and Polydeucus Menespheus, Theseus' old enemy. Theseus spent a long time in the kingdom of Hades. He endured severe torments there, but finally the greatest of the heroes freed him, Hercules.

Theseus returned again to the light of the sun, but this return did not bring him joy. The impregnable Athens was destroyed, Helen was freed, his mother was in grave captivity in Sparta, the sons of Theseus, Demophon and Akamant, were forced to flee from Athens, and all power was in the hands of the hated Menesfei. Theseus left Attica and retired to the island of Euboea, where he had possessions. Misfortune now accompanied Theseus. The king of Skyros, Lycomed, did not want to give Theseus his possessions; he lured the great hero to a high rock and pushed him into the sea. Thus the greatest hero of Attica died by a treacherous hand. Only many years after the death of Menespheus, Theseus' sons returned to Athens after a campaign near Troy. There, in Troy, Theseus' sons found his mother Ephra. She was brought there as a slave by the king's son Priama, Paris, together with the beautiful Elena he kidnapped.